USA TODAY: XFC 21's Nick Newell proving more than just a 'one-handed fighter'

Nick Newell’s coach, Jeremy Libiszewski, summed up his fighter’s problems about as well as anyone could.

“I think at first people thought of him as a sideshow,” Libiszewski told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “Now they’re going, ‘Well, he’s good, but I don’t think he’s that good.’ It’s one of those things where, the same reason he gets attention is the same reason why he doesn’t get respect.”

As Newell will tell you, getting people to pay attention to him is the easy part. That’s one of the good things about being a professional MMA fighter with only one hand: People remember you.

It’s getting them to take you seriously that’s really tough.

Newell – a 26-year-old lightweight from Milford, Conn., who’s missing his left hand and most of his left arm below the elbow due to congenital amputation – has been trying to change that perception ever since he became a pro fighter in 2009. At first, people got swept up in the novelty of it all. That’s somewhat understandable in a sport where possession of two functioning fists with which to pummel opponents was once assumed to be a prerequisite. People talked about him on forums, wrote about him on blogs, but the tone of the conversation was always of the isn’t-this-inspirational variety.

Which, hey, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with being inspirational. Newell is, especially to the kids with missing limbs who sometimes show up to the gym for everything from martial arts tips to lessons on tying their shoes with one hand, according to Libiszewski. Newell won’t tell you that part because it’s not something he does because he wants to be applauded for it, his coach said, but it has a very real impact of people’s lives nonetheless.

“No matter how busy he is, he always makes time for kids and adults who are struggling with the same kind of things he did in life,” said Libiszewski, who added that Newell had also recently done a free seminar for wounded U.S. war veterans. “That, to me, is the best part of it. That’s the martial arts part of it. People see the fighting, but they don’t see that martial artist person who’s in here teaching kids’ classes and helping people out. That’s the stuff that me, my wife and all the people around here are really proud of.”

It’s also the stuff that XFC President John Prisco has noticed ever since signing Newell shortly after seeing him at a regional tryout. At first, like everyone else, what Prisco noticed was his disability. As the tryouts went on he realized that Newell could fight, but he admitted he was a little concerned with how it would look if he signed a fighter with one hand.

“We saw him as a legitimate fighter, and we didn’t want people to see him as a sideshow,” Prisco said. “We wanted to let him get some wins as a pro first so people would respect him the way we respected the fighter we saw at the tryout.”

But since making his XFC debut a year ago, Newell has won three straight. He knocked out one opponent in the first round and submitted another in less than two minutes. That part didn’t surprise Prisco one bit, he said. What he wasn’t expecting was that Newell would bring in a whole new demographic.

“The biggest impact I’ve seen is with moms, actually,” Prisco said. “Moms who have children with some form of handicap, they’re always trying to reinforce that their kids can do anything they want and shouldn’t let themselves be held back, like any loving mom would. They come into our sport because they have their children following Nick, using him as the example of what you can do. That’s the amazing part to me. These are people who were not fans of MMA, and he’s brought them into our sport.”

It’s fitting since Newell’s own mother is a big part of the why he became an MMA fighter. She was the one who, when Newell wanted to quit high school wrestling during his freshman year, told him he had to stick it out. And he did, even if it wasn’t much fun.

“I came in not knowing anything, thinking I was going to put people in figure-four leglocks,” Newell said. “Then I got my butt kicked in the beginning.”

He went 2-22 as a freshman, he said. He got pinned 17 times. If there was any interest in him as a feel-good story for local news outlets then, he said, “It quickly diminished as I got destroyed my entire first year of wrestling.”

“That bothered me,” Newell said. “I know what it’s like to be a loser. I know what it’s like to be the guy that no one really expects anything from.”

Once the season was over and his peers moved on to other interests, Newell decided he was “going to get good at this wrestling stuff.” And he did. After working out and training all through the offseason, he posted a winning record his sophomore year. He went on to become an all-state wrestler and set the school record for career wins and tied a state record for wins in a season. He later wrestled at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass., where he was a team captain, but he never quite accomplished everything he wanted to in college wrestling.

“I had a lot of distractions,” Newell said. “They were good distractions. I was really focused on earning a degree and getting good grades. That kind of hurt my training a little bit, and I kind of felt a void because I didn’t do everything I wanted to do there.”

After graduating with a degree in communications, he worked for The History Channel as a video editor for a couple years. But by then he’d already gotten a taste of MMA training at Springfield’s Fighting Arts Academy, which is where he first met Libiszewski.

“I didn’t really think anything of it when he first came in,” Libiszewski recalled. “I mostly just noticed that he was a good athlete. He picked up things really quickly, and it wasn’t hard to teach him.”

Soon, the two developed a close relationship as Libiszewski groomed him as a fighter and got him ready to turn pro. These days Newell sleeps in Libiszewski’s basement.

“I’m like his fourth kid,” he joked. “He really takes care of me and maps out my training. He’s like a father figure. I owe a lot to him.”

Newell started off with three amateur bouts. He lost the first by decision and then won the next two. He was in a hurry to become a professional because he wanted to rack up fights before the athletic commission began regulating MMA in Massachusetts, after which point he thought he might have a problem convincing them that he knew what he was doing.

“I didn’t want them to say something like, ‘You can fight amateur but not pro,'” Newell said. “I wanted to fight pro before they came around so I could say, ‘Look, I can do this. I’m winning pro fights.'”

And he was. At least when he could find opponents, which wasn’t always easy. Some other fighters didn’t want to go up against a guy with one hand, it turned out. Many figured that if they won, it would be a shallow triumph. Maybe they’d even be seen as a bully who picked on a kid with disability. The only thing worse would be losing, which was also a distinct possibility, as anyone who checked out Newell’s wrestling credentials probably knew.

“But now it’s totally different,” Prisco said. “Now when we mention Nick Newell to fighters, they want to fight him because they know he’s good.”

Next in line is Eric Reynolds (16-5), who fights Newell (8-0) for the vacant XFC lightweight title this Friday night at XFC 21 in Nashville, Tenn. (AXS TV, 10 p.m. ET). It’s a big jump up in competition for Newell, who until now has been fighting mostly regional-level talent all along the East Coast.

“This will be his first real test,” Libiszewski said. “This guy is an A-level fighter. He’s possibly a UFC-level fighter. They’re fighting for a title for a reason.”

At least part of the reason, according to Prisco, is that fans have jumped on Newell’s bandwagon in droves. The more they see of him, the more they want to see, and XFC is eager to oblige.

“The same process has happened with our fans as with the fighters,” Prisco said. “At first they were skeptical. It’s the same as what you see in other sports, like [former Anaheim Angels pitcher] Jim Abbott in baseball. People aren’t sure at first until they see him compete, then they realize he’s a special athlete.”

What still remains to be seen is just how far he can go. Back when he was an inspirational story just for showing up and trying hard, few people bothered to wonder whether Newell had what it took to climb off the smaller shows and into the big time. Now? An undefeated record speaks for itself, and with a title fight win over Reynolds it will speak even louder.

As for Newell, he never had any doubt about what he was here to do.

“My goal when I started was never to be the one-handed fighter,” he said. “My goal is to be the best in the world.”

That includes not only winning an XFC title, but also moving on to the UFC some day, where Newell said he could “absolutely” compete with any lightweight in the octagon.

It’s a possibility that UFC President Dana White didn’t exactly rule out in a recent phone interview. At the same time, White said, “The UFC’s tough enough with two arms.”

As the UFC 189 tour made its last stop in Dublin, featherweight champ Jose Aldo was met with a torrent of abuse from the Irish fans. It might have been unpleasant, but it might also have been just what he needed.